Chapter Text
Everyone had told him not to go looking for Daisy. Every teacher, every classmate, even Basira, Daisy’s partner, had told him to stay out of it. It’s been weeks since the full moon, since Daisy broke free and ran into the Forbidden Forest. He can’t just leave her.
The Devil’s Snare moves its vines again, just slightly—not enough for Jon to breathe any more, but enough to see a sliver of yellow scarf and pale face.
“I’m sorry, Jon,” Daisy hisses, weak and strained as the vines squeeze down again. “I know I’ve been horrible.”
He wants to say it’s not important but it kind of is. She’s been a bully, plain and simple, all the time he’s known her.
“Is it you? Or is it the Wolf?”
”Both, I guess? Feels good, to be cruel, to be scary. Feels strong." The tiny sliver he can see of her freckly face contorts. "I—I just...I know they’ll hate me anyway if they find out what I am. m-Might as well not even try.”
”I don’t hate you, Daisy.” Jon presses his fingertips into hers as hard as he can before he Devil's Snare contracts around them and pulls them deeper once more. Daisy whimpers and it tries to pull them apart but through the pain and the crush he doesn't let go. He doesn't know how long it is before it lets up again.
Daisy's golden eye peers out at him through the tangle, bloodshot and shiny.
”h-How long have you known?”
“What, that you're a werewolf?" He hisses, wriggles as much as he can while he can. "I’ve always known.”
She’s quiet for a long time after that. He knows she’s alive only by the pained sounds she makes and the sound of her labored breaths, muffled as they are by the thicket of vines.
”I don’t want to do it anymore,” she finally whispers. “I don’t want to be that person anymore but now I’m scared I’ll never have the choice.”
“You will,” Jon says, and tries hard to mean it.
He tries, many times, to get free. For all Elias’ bluster about how special his wandless talents are, his attempts to hex or cut the vines are feeble at best. The one time he manages a flame, the vines recoil but he gets lost when the heat reaches his scarred hand. Panics, lets it flicker and die, and the vines slam back into them with a vengeance. He even tries to cast enough of a Patronus to fetch help, but not once does the silver mist wobble into even a vague cat shape.
He’s useless without his wand, they both are. Apparently all he’s good for is invading people’s privacy.
In the end he’s so dizzy with hunger and fear that he almost misses the twinkle of silver at the edge of his vision.
“Daisy,” he gasps. Wheezes as clear as he can. She whimpers something inquisitive, rough fingers twitching against his.
“Daisy, I, I see something.”
He manages to turn his head just enough, just barely, and there it is. A silver hare, nibbling at the vines. One snaps, and then another.
”Take my hand.”
”I can’t—I can’t reach, I—”
It takes no thought at all to wriggle deeper until his hand closes around her wrist.
”Got you!”
It’s maddeningly slow, wiggling them backwards out of the thicket. He can’t stand up yet, but the vines get looser as the strange Patronus bounds around them in loops. Scares the Snare away from its light.
“This way, Daisy, I’ve got you. I’ve got you.”
Squirming backwards on his belly while dragging a much larger girl, is one thing, but apparently standing after so long is quite another. So he lays there, panting, dirt in his mouth, for a few precious minutes, Daisy’s hand clasped in his.
The hare leads them out slowly. They both have to lean on trees most of the time, wobbly as they are. Daisy can barely walk at all.
It’s almost dawn by the time they see the edge of the forest. The silver hare bounds around them once, twice, then out of sight.
”Jon!”
Christ, but he’s never heard Basira this angry. Red-eyed and red-faced, still in her pajamas and dressing gown with her glasses askew, though her Ravenclaw-blue hijab is impeccably arranged as usual.
From here, he can also see Melanie, also in her pajamas, and Martin...Martin in his robes. Martin, sleepless and tear-stained. Martin, with the silver hare at his feet. Jon’s heart does a little swoop.
Basira stalks forward, brandishing her finger as though it were her wand.
”You stupid idiot! Bloody Gryffindors, what were you—“
She stops mid step. Dark eyes wide.
”Hi,” Daisy says, sheepish.
”Oh my god.”